user interface

Later this month, those who access the PlayStation Store on PS3 may notice a swankier storefront.

More than four years since the last major revision in appearance, Sony announced today an incoming redesign for the PlayStation Store due in the U.S. on October 23. The refreshed arrangement of the Store utilizes larger graphics to advertise content; streamlined navigation; and an improved search system. … Read more

NTT DoCoMo has always showcased interesting concepts at trade shows. For example, we saw a breathalyzer in a smartphone and an ultra-high-speed charging jacket at Mobile World Congress earlier this year.

This time, at Ceatec in Japan, NTT DoCoMo has come up with a concept handset that can be operated with one hand simply by gripping it in various ways.

The Grip UI, which is really a combination of hardware (pressure sensors on the back and both sides of the phone) and software, can be applied to activate shortcuts for opening apps or unlocking the phone. … Read more

Researchers are tapping into the brain's signals to ease the downsides of multitasking and information overload, a worsening problem in digital lifestyles.

A group of researchers at MIT, Indiana University, and Tufts University last week presented the Brainput computer interface device at last week's Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2012) which explores new human-machine interface designs.

Brainput seeks to address the problem of people getting overloaded when working on machines and to improve people's ability to multitask. It's geared primarily at complex control systems, but its makers say the technique could eventually spill … Read more

Researchers have developed a way to take the multitouch interface of tablets and smartphones to a whole new level and set of objects.

Disney Research in Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University yesterday announced a touch interface technology called Touche that brings a new set of gestures to existing touch screens and can make anything from table tops to body parts computer input devices.

It could lead to a "smart doorknob" that unlocks when grasped a certain way, or a couch that turns on the TV when a person sits down and turns off when the person falls asleep. … Read more

In the computing world right now, there are two general ways to show windows on a screen: with the window taking up the entire screen, as on smartphones and tablets; or with resizable, overlapping windows, as on personal computer OSes.

Until yesterday, Google's browser-based operating system, Chrome OS, fell into the former camp. Users had no choice but to see browser pages and run browser apps at the full size of the screen. That changed with a new window manager that debuted with Chrome OS 19.0.1048.17, released in a developer build.

With the Chromebook notebooks that … Read more

Adobe Systems has published a glimpse of the forthcoming Photoshop CS6, an update that brings the dark workspace and raw-image editing tools from the new beta of its sister program, Lightroom 4.

Bryan O'Neil Hughes, an Adobe senior product manager, showed off a bit of the new software in a YouTube video published yesterday. Photoshop CS6 is set to debut along with the sixth version of Adobe's Creative Suite in the first half of 2012.

Darker photo backgrounds are all the rage for photo software since they make photos stand out nicely; the darker interface used in Lightroom … Read more

The digital world has plenty of accessories that aren't strictly necessary, but Ten One Design's Pogo Sketch Plus caught my eye today.

It's a stylus for iOS devices that replaces your finger with something a bit more precise. I've been interested in the user-interface convergence between tablets, laptops, and drawing tablets. Such devices today are quite separate, but I foresee a future where they get closer together--and devices like the Pogo Sketch line could help.

The $15 stylus updates the two-year-old Pogo Sketch with a tip with "more consistent and smoother operation," the … Read more

A consultancy has spotlighted difficulties people have using Amazon's Kindle Fire. But the "usability sessions" can hardly be considered exhaustive testing.

A summary of Nielsen Norman Group's tests said the Kindle Fire "offers a disappointingly poor user experience," and cites the size of the screen as the main culprit.

Then the group adds this caveat: "This was a small study, with only four users, but qualitative studies often generate deeper insights than bigger, more metrics-focused quantitative studies." The link to the findings first appeared on Daring Fireball.

Highlights of Nielsen Norman Group findings:… Read more

Lots of things have changed about cars over the past few decades. One that hasn't evolved all that much is the user interface that most of them provide. Garden-variety automobiles are still full of gauges and buttons and switches of the decidedly physical, old-fashioned sort.

And then there's Tesla's Model S. Due in showrooms next summer, the $57,400 sedan is the spiritual offpsring of the company's $108,000 Roadster sports car, in a more practical package. But when I checked it out today at GigaOM's RoadMap conference in San Francisco, I wasn't … Read more